With all three of her siblings wiped out by a stampeding herd of buffalo, a morose baby lion cub hitches a lift on her mother’s back.
Poignant: The lion cub rests on her mother’s head in the Maasai Mara, Kenya, after her siblings were killed
Pick-me-up: The lioness rolled her surviving cub onto her belly and licked it playfully after the tragedy of nature
The sequence of photos shows her mother approach the lion cub and gently roll her onto the floor, licking her belly playfully.
Sad: London-based Margot Raggett, who took up photography only four years ago, the captured the scene
Gnawing: Although lions are fiercely dominant animals, the cubs are small and vulnerable to attack
Comfort: The cub lay on this tree stump gazing into the distance before she was found by her mother
Ms Raggett said: ‘The mother had lost her other three cubs and so this one was now her only cub. It was sad’
Playful: Unlike males, who kill the offspring of rivals to eliminate their blood line, lionesses are fiercely protective of their young and sometimes work communally to give them better odds of survival
When a male takes over a pride he is known to kill his rival’s cubs to remove the bloodline and make the lionesses fertile again earlier.
Lonely: The cub’s three siblings were killed by a stampede of buffalo, which can be triggered at any time